The Bar Offered PS3 Gaming And Schoolgirls Until The Cops Arrived

The staff served drinks, made small talk and played PS3 games with customers. They not only went on dates, they also broke the law. This week, the manager of a schoolgirl themed "girls' bar" was arrested for employing actual schoolgirls.

Koichiro Fukayama, 44, managed an AKB48 inspired schoolgirl establishment called AKB162 and allegedly violated Japan's Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses by running an unlicensed girls' bar that employed minors; three teens-aged 15 to 16 — were also picked up by the police.

The bust was part of a nationwide crackdown on girls' bars.

As website The Tokyo Reporterpoints out, a girls' bar is similar to a hostess bar, but registered as an after-hours eating-and-drinking establishment to avoid stricter regulations that covers hostess bars and prostitution.

Girls' bars, however, offer hostess-like services in that patrons are not only paying for foot and drink, but also for companionship and conversation. (Note that at hostess clubs, and girls' bars for that matter, sexual services are not offered.) Employing anyone under the age of 18 is strictly prohibited.

Teenagers can get part time jobs in restaurants, but these types of venues are a definite no-no. They are essentially hostess bars, and teens cannot, and should not, work in such establishments that are geared entirely for adult entertainment. But that was AKB162's chief attraction: this bar allowed customers to meet and talk to underage girls, making comic book, video game, and pop music fantasies real.

Japanese site Akiba Blog has photos of schoolgirls in their actual school uniforms passing out fliers on the streets of Akihabara. The fliers read, "You can take a stroll and play the PS3 with girls!" So, you could take a 60 minute walk for ¥6,000 (US$75) or play PS3 games for the same time for ¥5,000 ($US63).

The photos were taken at night and it's rainy, and you can help but wondering why their parents weren't worried about their daughters. Maybe they were.

At AKB162, 20 underage girls were on staff, and the establishment offered customers conversation as well as the chance to play PS3 games, take walks, or even go on dates with the schoolgirls. In short, it offered compensated dating, which is something that get people arrested in Japan — and rightly so.

Schoolgirl characters appear throughout Japanese popular culture for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean they should appear throughout the country's nightlife.

Culture Smash is a daily dose of things topical, interesting and sometimes even awesome — game related and beyond.

They do have "that" kind of bar, (if you mean one with legal age women dressed as schoolgirls, as well as nurses, french maids, and any other number of attractive skimpily costumed archetypes) - you're just not old enough to get in or you can't afford to. :p

No, you should read it again. There's nothing sexual about it. The closest thing to sexual is that you can go on a stroll with the girl and feel you are having a date with her (if that floats your boat.) I have to say that the sanctimonious, stern tone of Ashcraft in this article was totally unwarranted: "this should not be", "rightly so", etc. No one is getting fooled, no one is getting forced into anything they don't want.

This is simply and plainly the worst case of sensationalist journalism: the one that not only exposes supposed atrocities but also gets on a soap box and reclaims moral authority. Man, it sure is a good thing to be western and not one of those creepy, perverted japs, right?

If you read the article again, you'd read that it wasn't about the potential sexual nature of it. The bar was violating the law because it offered hostess bar like services (companionship and such) but without applying for the proper licenses to do so, not to mention that since it was classified as falling under the legal classification of hostess bar, the girls working there were deemed under age.

Older men often pay younger girls to "Go on dates" with them, something which this bar was probably attempting to capitalise on while doing what it could to try and avoid the laws surrounding it.

Only logged in users may vote for comments!

Get Permalink

Trending Stories Right Now

Today, how you feel about panty shots can determine how you feel about anime as a whole. And it's not just panty shots. In the blockbuster anime Food Wars, women's clothes burst off their bodies when they taste an exquisite bite of steak. Skirts often don't cover the bottom halves of women's butts in Prison School. Breasts are regularly the first body part to enter a shot in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?. In the West, the practice of lacing gratuitous sexuality -- and especially female sexuality -- into an anime is known as "fan service". Love it or hate it, anime studios have made a conscious effort to feature "fan service" in most of this year's Western-subbed anime titles.